Dining Do's and Don'ts

Its not just what you eat but how you eat that can help you win at the losing game.

Do Clue Into Yourself Eating to clean your plate can deep-six a diet. Researchers asked 133 Parisians and 145 Chicagoans how they knew when they were finished eating dinner. The leading replies from Paris: When they were no longer hungry or when the meal no longer tasted goodwhat study author Brian Wansink described as internal cues of satiety. The leading replies from Chicago: When my plates empty or when the TV show they were watching was overexternal cues. However, no matter on which side of the Atlantic they resided, overweight people relied on different cues than those of normal-weight people. They relied more on external cues, said Wansink.

Dont Dine Distracted Turn off the external buzz. Get the TV out of the kitchen and keep meals away from the television. No reading material, smart phone, homework, or music with a mealany meal. Everything you eat, even if it is just a snack, should be eaten without distractions.

Do Change Venues Eat lunch somewhere other than your desk. Your desk is a minefield of distractions, so chances are youll be multi-tasking while eating, warns Elisa Zied, author of Nutrition at Your Fingertips. This can not only leave you unsatisfied, but youre also likely to eat past fullness. Remember, the best meals are the ones that get your undivided attention. If work is front and center, then enjoying a good lunch is not. If you must dine at your desk, be sure to stop working, put your computer on sleep and your smart phone in a drawer, and concentrate on eating.

Dont Set Yourself Up The solution to eating less is serving yourself less, and the best way to do so, suggests Cornells Brian Wansink, is to downsize your dinnerware. The average dinner plate has grown in size by 22 percent over the last century. Interestingly, this increase in plate size approximately mirrors the increase in portion size and the increase in the availability and affordability of food, says Wansink, adding that we have become increasingly less able to accurately estimate how many calories we eat as portion sizes increase.

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